Transit of Venus : Photograph of G.L. Tupman in Harrow

Transit of Venus

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This photograph shows Lieutenant-Colonel George Lyon Tupman (1838-1922) with the large reflecting equatorial telescope that he set up in Hillfoot Observatory, Harrow. Tupman established the observatory after he returned from observing his second transit of Venus in 1882, in Christchurch, New Zealand. The Observatory was also equipped with a transit circle and a refracting equatorial telescope and its records can be found among the Royal Greenwich Observatory Archives, <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://janus.lib.cam.ac.uk/db/node.xsp?id=EAD%2FGBR%2F0180%2FRGO%2059'>Papers of George Lyon Tupman, RGO 59</a>. With the transit circle he observed a large number of faint stars on the horizon. The equatorials were used to observe occultations of comets and minor planets, particularly during the lunar eclipses of 1884, 1885 and 1895. He published many of these observations in the <i>Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society</i>. He had been a Fellow of the Society since 1863 and served on Council 1873-1880 and as Secretary 1884-1889. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Rebekah Higgitt<br /> University of Kent</p>